Five Times Remus Never Told Sirius He Loved Him
by SecondSilk
Summary: A 'five things that never happened to' story. Five times Remus could have told Sirius he loved him, and five ways Sirius might have reacted if he had.u
1. Innocence

Five Time Remus Never Told Sirius He Loved Him

By Rose Williams.

Slash, possible fluff. Marauder era to Post-OotP. AU.

PG-13.

Harry Potter was created by JK Rowling and published by Bloomsbury.

Author's Notes: This story is one the 'five things that never happened to,' stories.

* **

Remus woke to the familiar aching in his bones. He woke to the familiar sight of the hospital wing's curtains, feeling of hunger, and sense of loss. But something wasn't right this time. There was an unfamiliar memory, something more than the scents of his friends and the coolness of the forest. His stomach grumbled, and the memory of the smell of food made itself clear in his mind. Food. Bloody Hell.

M adam Pomfrey was bustling around outside the drawn hangings. Remus managed to stand up and climb into his pyjama pants before she opened the curtains. She looked at him and tutted.

"I need to…" Remus began; although he was unsure of what argument he could make to leave.

"Not til you've had breakfast," Madam Pomfrey said, handing Remus a tray. "The headmaster said he would coming to see you after breakfast."

"After…" Remus began. He'd miss classes! Then, "Dumbledore!"

"I heard your stomach before," Madam Pomfrey said. "Now eat up, it's already ten to nine."

Remus sat down, stunned, and stared blankly at his breakfa st, which consisted, as always, of cereal, apple and yoghurt. He absently picked out a piece of apple and began to nibble it. He hadn't slept so long after a transformation since first year, or at least since the others had joined him the previous y ear. Happy to see him eating, Madam Pomfrey left him alone.

Suddenly not at all hungry, Remus put his tray on his bedside table. He occupied himself for a few minutes buttoning his pyjama top and putting on the extra warm pair of socks Sirius had gi ven him for Christmas because he had complained about how cold the infirmary floor was.

Then all he had left to do was pace, and think about the smell of food and the Headmaster's imminent arrival.

Remus's memories had not clarified by the time Dumbledore arrived, with Sirius following him quietly. Remus stared from one to the other. Neither expression was at all encouraging, despite Dumbledore's reassuring smile.

"I just wanted to say that I hold nothing against you, Mr Lupin," Dumbledore said. "However reckless your friends are, I am glad that you have found people you trust so well. Our arrangements stand. You may contact your parents or not, as you wish, and the consequences are little more than detention for Mr Black."

"For what?" Remus asked.

"That is for Mr Black to explain. You are both excused from Potions, but are expected back in class after the first break."

"Yes, sir," Remus said, now looking at Sirius again, who still wouldn't meet his eye.

Dumbledore nodded once, and left. Remus climbed back into bed to sit against the bed head. Sirius sat carefully in the chair. He seemed to take Remus's confused silence as ce nsure, because when he finally did speak it was:

"I only told him to shut him up, honestly. I never thought he'd believe me, let along try it out. But he deserved it anyway, nosey git. No doubt the shock of his life. Don't worry; h e won't say anything, Dumbledore made sure. But really nothing was going to happen. I could have stopped you if James hadn't played the bloody hero and rescued that greasy snake."

None of it made any real sense to Remus, although h e was being to feel ill. And it seemed that Sirius was, for once, feeling guilty.

"Well, say something, please," Sirius said.

"What happened?" Remus asked.

"You mean you don't remember?"

&# 8220;Only food," Remus said slowly.

Sirius snorted. "I'm sure he wouldn't have tasted very nice," he said, as if Remus eating people was a natural part of his character, which, Remus supposed, it technically was.

"Anyway, you didn't get close to biting him?"

"Who?"

"Snape," Sirius said slowly, aware now that this was not a conversation for levity.

"Severus?"

"Who else makes such a fuss about where you go? Even Gideon quietly worked it out on his own. But no, the slimy snake has to keep hoping we'll slip up. Well, he found out properly now, and Dumbledore has put the fear of Filch and Gigly in him. The threat of expulsion, too, I think, so he won't say anything."

"I almost ate Severus?" Remus said, more to himself than Sirius, but he prepared himself to answer the inevitable "not you, the wolf." Sirius merely chuckled, and Remus felt uncommonly reassured.

"He was shitting himself," Sirius said delightfully. "Too scared to work out it was you to begin with. James pulled him out of the way and locked the door before either of you could recover from the shock. You wouldn't have eaten him anyway. We were waiting, like always, when he showed up. James was quite confused before he got angry and reckless. But I was prepared to beat you back."

"Are you completely mad?" Remus asked.

Si rius grinned. "Probably. But hey, nothing happened. Slytherin got 50 points, Gryffindor lost 20 and I got a week of detentions with Filch."

"Look, what Dumbledore's doing, letting me be here, it's dangerous, and probabl y stupid," Remus said. "But you and James and Peter, animagi, it's illegal."

"A lot of things are illegal that shouldn't be," Sirius said.

"Not to disagree," Remus said, hotly, "But t hat's not the point."

"No," Sirius said meekly. "The point is that Severus Snape is a nosy bastard who got a good shock. And you didn't kill anyone, or bite anyone, or accidentally eat Snape. Which is just as well, I'm sure he's completely indigestible."

Remus sighed.

"Am I forgiven?" Sirius asked.

It was a common enough question from Sirius, but he asked it genuinely this time. Remus sighed again. He wasn't en tirely sure. Sirius had been willing to risk himself to save Remus from hurting anyone. But the situation was entirely Sirius's fault to begin with. On the other hand, Sirius seemed able to see the wolf and Remus as one and the same creature. "You didn't kill anyone," not "no one was killed," which is what James would have said. It was refreshing, talking to someone who knew he might eat someone, and saw it as an amusing concept. There was more to his willingness to for give Sirius, he was sure, but he didn't have the words.

He nodded. Sirius grinned broadly and threw his arms around Remus.

"Couldn't have born it if you'd said no," Sirius said.

"Couldn't have sa id no," Remus told him warmly.

Sirius released him, and waved a hand dismissively.

"You'd be stuck helping James and Peter with their Defence homework in the Library," Sirius said. "No more of those midnight adven tures you love so much."

Remus rolled his eyes. "I love _you_, idiot that you are," Remus said.

Sirius froze. 'Too much,' Remus thought, suddenly terrified that Sirius wasn't going to understand him and would freak out instead. Middle-aged women were allowed to say such things to each other, but not seventeen-year-old boys.

"Do you mean that?" Sirius asked quietly.

"You're an infinitely likeable chap," Remus sai d. "Well, except to Slytherins."

"You love me?"

Sirius looked eleven again, perhaps even younger.

"Yes," Remus said simply.

Sirius was silent again for a moment, then quiet when he said: "No one has ever said that to me before."

Remus managed to stop himself saying, "Really?" but didn't know what else he could say.

Sirius pulled himself out of his thoughts and grinned.

"I'm loved," he said. "And no doubt also adored, and generally thought the world of. Brilliant."

Remus rolled his eyes.

Sirius spied the tray on the table, and got up to examine the contents before turning his nose up at them.

"If you put some clothes on," he told Remus, "I can take you down to the kitchens and we can eat a breakfast Madam Pomfrey definitely wouldn't approve of."

"You didn't eat?"

"Of course I ate," Sirius said. "But no one ever argued against a second breakfast. Come on, we've still got an hour free."

Sirius turned his back and marched out of the hospital wing. Remus hurriedly removed his pyjamas and dragged his robes over hi s head before running after his friend.

N 


	2. Strength

Disclaimers, etc, see part one.

* * *

The night was, as far as Remus was concerned, almost a complete success. Everyone had passed; everything was packed neatly in his trunk for the last journey home in the morning; Dumbledore, James and Lily had spoken well, the food had been excellent, the music was pleasant, and Sirius was neither taunting Snape, nor talking to Amanda Matheson. If Lily would only stop shooting him meaningful glances from where she was dancing with James, Remus felt he would be able to enjoy the party properly.

Sirius returned to the otherwise empty Gryffindor table and plonked himself into the seat next to Remus. While he organised himself another drink, Remus took the chance to notice, once again, how well the dark silve r-blue of Sirius robes drew attention to his pale eyes.

"Did Mr Padfoot enjoy his fruitless pursuit of the maidens of this fair castle?" Remus asked.

"You're assuming they were fruitless, Mr Moon y?" Sirius replied, with an equally expansive tone.

"Then who's the lucky girl?"

Sirius chuckled, and waved a hand.

"I don't do that anymore," he said. "Retired, as it were."

&# 8220;Gave up?" Rem us suggested. "Or have you been out with every eligible girl in Hogwarts except for Amanda, and our dear Lily, who was so always sensible."

"Until last November," Sirius said. "And Marigold Doug las wouldn't go out with me."

"Hmm," Remus said, unsure how to take the fact the Sirius wished to make a point of it.

But Sirius didn't bother with continuing the conversation. The mention of Lily had naturally ma de him seek her out in the crowd of dancers, and he was frowning.

"Is Lily making eyes at you?" he asked suddenly.

Remus looked across the dance floor. Lily seemed to have decided meaningfulness was too easily ignored, and was in f act glaring at Remus now from over James's shoulder.

"She thinks she can convince me to… act against my principles and character by looking like she wants to roast me alive."

"With a look," Sirius said, soun ding impressed, and curio us. "What principles?" he asked.

"Undertaking no actions which will potentially backfire causing embarrassment, public displays of scorn or horror, disillusionment, censure or loss of current comforts.R 21;

Sirius was silen t for a few moments, and Remus welcomed the relief. But then Sirius, sounding petulant, said:

"That doesn't make any sense."

"You've just drunk too much," Remus told him. "Mc Gonagall spiked the punch.& #8221;

"McGonagall?"

"She thought it would be funny," Remus said. "And that it would help her get through an evening with Professors Bosse and Ius."

Sirius looked across the hall to where the Defence a nd Potions teachers were sitting next to each other, but silent, and looking a bit stunned.

"Clever woman," Sirius said.

"Indeed," Remus murmured.

"So if I got drunk without know ing it," Sirius went on, "did you?"

"I don't know," Remus admitted. "I've only been avoiding the punch. What did you spike?"

"I am shocked and appalled that you could suggest such a thing of me, Lupin," Sir ius said, sitting straighter in his chair. "I figured you wouldn't actually want any alcohol, and I certainly wasn't going to share my supplies with the unappreciative masses."

"Oh, right, sorry," Remus said, mana ging to suppress his grin.

"But you might have drunk something else, so you might embarrass yourself anyway. And if that's possible, you might as well break your principles. At least then it will be a delib erate act, and one you'll remember. There's no point embarrassing yourself if other people will remember and you won't. For another thing, it's our Leaving Feast. You should do something you would never otherwise do. Think of it as an experiment of a kind. And i f it backfires, you can always blame the alcohol."

Remus turned in his chair so he could stare at Sirius properly. Sirius raised both hands in temporary defeat against Remus's scathing look.

"S o what Lily wants you to do,R 21; he continued, once Remus had turned away again.

Remus gave an aggravated sigh. Sirius was undeterred.

"It will possibly cause you embarrassment?"

"Yes."

"Possibly d raw attention to you?"

"Yes."

"Possibly result in someone publicly scorning you or being horrified?"

"Yes."

"And it will possibly cause you lose some of your no doubt delightful illusion s; cause people to censure you; or cause you to be less comfortable than you are now?"

"Yes," Remus said. "And they are delightful illusions, I assure you."

Sirius ignored him in favour of his own thoughts for sev eral blessedly silent minutes.

"No," he said, eventually. "I can't believe Lily wants you to tell anyone about your occasionally hirsute and deadly state. I can't see what else could possibly cause real damage. So on th is, possibly our last night to gether, I think you should do it, while I'm still here to protect you."

Remus raised an eyebrow at the last comment.

"Watch," Sirius amened.

"You're drunk," Remus s aid.

"But not wrong."

"She wants me to tell you that I'm in love with you," Remus said, glaring back at Lily rather than looking at Sirius.

"But you're not," Sirius said, a statement of fac t as dry as Remus's own.

"Well, I am," Remus said. "But the point was rather that it should be my choice to tell you, and not Lily's."

"You're not in love with me," Sirius repeated, as if h e were explaining advanced Char ms.

Remus sighed. "Well, then, I'm suffering under a crush and lack only the physical strength required to push you up against the wall."

"How do you know that?" Sirius asked.

"Know what?"

"That you lack the physical strength to push up against he wall, Moony. You've never tried."

Remus huffed because he didn't want to sigh again. He brushed aside the argument with a relaxed wave of his hand. Unfortunately, Sir ius grasped his hand out of the air. Remus looked at him again. Sirius stood up, pulling Remus up after him.

"What?" Remus began.

"Come on, I'll show. There's nothing to it," Sirius said.

He started to wards the entrance hall, dragging Remus behind him.

"Where are we going?" Remus demanded.

"Outside."

"Why?"

"Because delightful as it is to pushed up against a wall, Mr Moony, it is infinit ely more delightful if there aren't Slytherins or people around to witness it."

They reached the deserted entrance hall. Sirius fell back against the wall, pulling Remus of balance to lean against him, so that Remus effectively trapped Sirius against the wall.

"See, nothing to it," Sirius said.

Remus couldn't be quite so casual about it all. And he certainly didn't really want Sirius to be completely casual. On the ot her he was possibly drunk, so when Sirius just waved a hand dismissively and said, "Yeah, yeah. Just kiss me," Remus did.

ﬁ 


	3. Fotitude

Disclaimers, etc, see part one.

 * *

Sirius was staring at the fire again. He looked better than he had five days ago, when he had first arrived with Buckbeak on Remus's doorstep. He had put on a bit of weight, and a bit of colour. He had w ashed, and shaved, and cut his hair, and he was wearing clean clothes. But he seemed always as if he were just on the verge of getting up and walking out the door, he had yet to utter a syllable, and he was staring at the fire again.

Remus was const antly surprised by how much and how little Sirius had changed. Although he was getting used to the surprises coming, there was still so much he had to discover, or rediscover.

The first was that he and Sirius were of a height. The embrace in the sha ck had told him only that Sirius was far too thin. Remus had been preparing to let down a pair of his robes for Sirius, while Sirius had washed that first night, only to discover that there was no need, not ever for an inch. In all his memories, Sirius to wered over him. And then it really struck him; Remus had been wearing the same size robes for ten years, only ten years, Sirius had been wearing the same set for twelve.

Sirius still smiled with the same vague sense of amusement in his pleasure. And Remus had seen it often; when he first opened the door and invited Sirius in; when he had turned on the bath tap; when he had given Sirius honey with his tea. But it hadn't reached his eyes. Nothing had reached Sirius's eyes.

And Remus couldn't make out Sirius's expression now, in the flickering light. It wasn't inscrutable, merely unfamiliar. Too pensive and considered for the Sirius Remus knew… had known. Remus kept looking over the top of his book to check tha t Sirius was still there. He was worried that Sirius would just leave again as simply as he had arrived unless he said something; but he was equally worried that saying anything would scare Sirius away.

"Why am I still here?" Sirius aske d.

Remus caught his book before it actually hit the ground, but a couple of pages ended up bent.

"Where should you be instead?" Remus asked, disconcerted by the question.

"Anywhere else," Sirius said. His voice ha d recovered only a little, and he was quiet. "You did your duty letting me wash and change. You fed me. You could kick me out. You should kick me out."

"And who wouldn't I talk to then?" Remus asked, amused.

Sirius wasn't.

"It's still novel having you here," Remus said. "You never spent a night at my place before," he added.

A spasm of pain crossed Sirius's face, and it seemed for a moment that he was going to push whatever the thought was, away; or leave. But he obviously gave up because he relaxed, and after a moment said:

"I didn't know what you were talking about, that night."

And Remus knew exactly what he was talking about no w.

"I said something stupid, offhand," Sirius said, struggling to remember the right memories. "I was distracted, thinking things I didn't want to think and having conversations I didn't want to think about. I can't recall what I said, now."

The words were forever burned into Remus's mind, but he didn't think it would be polite to say so.

"I remember your face, though," Sirius continued. "I knew I had said the wrong thing because you looked so far away. It was like I killed something, although I had no idea what. There was something in you I suddenly didn't recognise. Then, years later, I worked it out. It was half moon, the quiet time, like that night. For a moment the world was a real place again, outside the walls, not some half remembered dream. And I was anywhere else but inside those walls, because you had loved me."

Remus had never heard the words out loud. He thought they sounded strange in Sirius's still-rough voice above the crackling fire.

"So they took it away," Sirius said. "And all I had was the knowledge that I had failed to see something else I should have recognised. That I had destroyed another preciou s thing."

"You didn't," Remus said, but too quietly to penetrate Sirius's thoughts.

"Why?" Sirius asked.

"Why what?"

"Why did you love me? I mean, I was selfish, and stupid, and reckless and mean, and completely unsophisticated and un-attuned to the subtleties of real communication, I think you said."

"You were Sirius."

"That's not an answer, Moony."

Remus chuckled. He sounded exactly like his old self. He seemed it too, with the quick tilt of the head and the hand gesture imperiously demanding more explanation.

"You're asking the wrong question," Remus said.

Sirius turned away from the fir e to look at Remus through carefully narrowed eyes.

"The real question is why couldn't I stop."

"What?"

"Still un-attuned, Mr Padfoot. You were a murderer and a traitor. You had lied to us all, probabl y since we had first known you. You killed you best friend, and Lily, and then Peter. You showed no remorse, or even understanding of the enormity of your betrayal. You were the worst scum of the earth, and proof that friendship and love are not thicker t han blood. I hated you from the very depths of my soul, Sirius. For thirteen years I had to, just to keep going. But I couldn't stop loving you."

Sirius turned back to the fire and stared again at the flames and again said nothing. Event ually Remus could bear the silence no longer. And because Sirius was still his brash and obtuse old self, said:

"I love you."

Sirius turned slowly, a careful rearrangement of his body, which Remus knew would be followed by a commen t Sirius thought amusing, but was probably inappropriate.

"Why?" he asked, with all the curious demand of a thirteen year old wanting to know why he shouldn't set off dung bombs in the Slytherin corridor.

Remus shook his head with a chuckle.

"I have no earthly idea."

Sirius laughed, amused by Remus and his own amusement. His eyes sparkled with it. And Remus remembered that Sirius had always seemed on the verge of leaving, but had never been able to go quietly.

"And I want you to stay," he said.

Sirius glanced around the room briefly before giving a decisive nod.

"Where else could I go, Mr Moony?"

p 


	4. Desperation

Disclaimers etc, see part one.

Thank you all so much for the reviews.

Five Things That Never Happened To… stories are usually more explicitly AU than this (there's a list on the front page of my LJ at the moment). Technical ly the only tie between each chapter is that if the previous one had happened, the next would not be possible, because things would have been quite different.

* * *

Grimmauld place was the worst Remus had ever seen it, after the Christmas holidays ended a nd the Weasleys went back home. Sirius wasn't. Remus had seen Sirius his first night in the Gryffindor dormitory, had seen him at Regulus's funeral, and that night in Shrieking Shack at the end of Harry's third year. But the silence in t he house was quiet, rather that oppressive, as though it, too, felt bereft. The uneasiness Remus felt was almost entirely Sirius's fault, and Remus wished there was someone else there to distract Sirius.

It had usually been Remus who had talke d Sirius down from his angry-at-the-world rages. But Remus was as angry as Sirius, and really not up to playing devil's advocate. Instead he was left to watch Sirius pace from one side of the basement kitchen to the other. Occasionally Sirius paused to glare at Remus, sitting still at one end of the kitchen table, before continuing his journey.

"I don't like it," Sirius said.

"So I had gathered," Remus replied calmly.

Sirius glared at him for a moment before turning his back again. There was silence for several long moments.

"Snape!" Sirius said, in the same angry-disgusted tone he had always used to refer to their nemesis.

"He is the best qualified," Remus said.

Sirius found an especially focused glare for him. Remus justified his current position by the knowledge that Snape was not the devil, technically.

"Dumbledore is the best qualified," Sirius said.

"You know why it can't be that," Remus said.

Sirius rounded on him with a triumphant swirl of robes.

"Harry doesn't," he said, jabbing a finger at Remus.

"Do you think it's fair to tell him everything? In earnest, Sirius, he's just turned fifteen, he's at school, he sitting his OWLs this year. Dumbledore can protect him while he's at Hogwarts. Does he need to be worried about everything else as well?"

"He has to spend hours alone with S nivellus probing through his mind."

"We can trust Snape," Remus said.

"Does Harry have to like him?" Sirius asked.

Remus sighed. "No," he said. There was more of an argument to be made, but Remus was really too tired; he didn't want to continue the argument.

"We were eleven when Voldemort started killing people we knew, Remus. James was twelve when he realised that he would have to protect Lily."

"Harry lost pe ople before he was born," Remus said sharply. "And he faced Voldemort before he was twelve. He deserves as little worry as possible."

"He deserves as much information as possible," Sirius said. "We can tell him why Voldemort is after him and why he has to learn Occlumency."

"Tell him that Voldemort was never after his parents?" Remus said. "Tell him that he will have to kill somebody? He's the 'hope of the Wizarding world;' he needs to be prepared, not worried."

"Prepared?" Sirius roared.

His arms waved wildly over his head for a moment, but the words weren't waiting there for him. Remus felt his own quiet control desert him.

"He's not James, Sirius. You can't go haring off the way you used. We have to make sure that he'll be safe, and ready to do what he has to. What can you offer him that Dumbledore and Snape can't? Restlessness, overconfidence and a house full of Dark Arts objects?"

Sirius, for the first time in months, was absolutely still. He turned slowly, and leant on the table so he looked down it at Remus. The suddenly calm look on his face, and the piecing focus of Sirius 217;s gaze, reached deep into Remus and squeezed something painfully. He had no time to consider what it might have been before Sirius came up with an answer.

"I love him," Sirius said quietly, claiming all the implications of that answe r.

"I love you," Remus said, in the same dark and certain tone. "You want to risk yourself, think for a moment of all of us who would left behind again."

Sirius was silent for a full thirty seconds. Remus carefully drew a breath and let it out slowly. They watched each other carefully along the long expanse of empty wood.

"You selfish bastard," Sirius said, eventually. "Your feelings count in this argument? You don't care about him either. Am I the only one who can see what he's feeling? Dumbledore won't look, and Snape won't care, and you've just dismissed it out of hand. Harry needs someone he can trust to tell him everything. Someone he doesn't need to impre ss, someone he can yell at. I can offer that."

"You can't offer anyone anything if you're dead," Remus snapped. "If you're caught again Harry loses the one person he knows loves him for himself."

"And you lose me, Moony, very touching." Sirius's voice dropped further into scathing derision. "I barely know the boy and I'm his godfather."

"A brilliant job you did of that, too, Padfoot," Remus sa id.

He watched with no small amount of vicious glee and relief as Sirius's entire body slumped. He seemed to fall in on himself and collapsed into a chair at his far end of the table – the one that meant he wouldn't have to look at Remus.

"I'm sorry," Remus said.

"No, you're not."

Sirius rested his head on his arms, folded on the table. His dark hair hid his head against his black robes. Remus was more than a whole arm's length too far away, but his fingers still tingled with the uncertain desire to push the hair gently off Sirius's face. And he wasn't sorry.

Sirius took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. He took another, as though he was holding back tears.

"They're dead," Sirius said, through the obvious thickness in his throat. He tried again, "they're dead." "They're dead," he said once more, and his voice began to take on the familiar col d certainly that had always been the basis of Sirius's rash confidence.

"Yes."

"Peter's a lying, stinking rat."

"Yes."

"Dumbledore has some great plan that will save us all, eve n if it kills us."

"He always does."

"We can trust Snape."

"Apparently."

Sirius looked up from his arms. He had recognised the faint wryness in Remus's tone.

"And you love me."

"I do."

Sirius let out harsh bark of laughter. There was silence for a moment before Sirius's laughter broke free. The sound echoed around the cavernous room, having the corners knocked off it by the dark walls. B y the time it reached Remus, he could ignore the desperate edge to it. He could ignore the familiar manic light in Sirius's eyes as he had done when he was sixteen and say "yes," when Sirius asked if he wanted something stronger to drink.

Sirius disappeared for a few moments and returned carrying a bottle of his grandfather's scotch; laid down at the time the whole of Britain had been celebrating. Sirius poured two carefully measured glasses and passed one to Remus before taking the seat next to him at the table.

Remus drank slowly, not daring to interrupt Sirius's mood. Sirius was perhaps too quiet, but he wasn't shouting. And he was thinking again, so Remus waited until the thought processes reached their conclusions.

"Do we have anything else left?" Sirius asked.

"Harry," Remus replied promptly. "We have Harry. We have a war to fight. And we have each other."

Sirius took a deep swallow of the alcohol a nd set his glass down carefully. He stared through the cut glass bottom to the table.

"I don't know what any of this means," he said.

Remus reached across the table and gently placed his hand on Sirius's. He stroked the back of Sirius's hand with gentle fingers. Sirius watched with something like detachment.

"I don't know what that means, either," he said.

Remus stilled his fingers. Sirius entwined their fingers together and looked up into Remus's eyes. Remus smiled.

"I don't either," he said. "But that's never stopped you before."

The grin that appeared on Sirius's face took Remus back years, back to evenings spent not doing homework in front of the common room fire, and for the first time he was pleased to remember that they had the house pretty much to themselves. From the glint of the smile echoed in Sirius's grey eyes, he was too.

w 


	5. Cheekiness

Disclaimers, etc, see part one.

* * *

"Christmas's are bigger now," Remus said, surveying the mess he had refused to let Cho and Charlie clean up for them.

"There are more kids," Sirius said, with a shrug from his place on the couch. "And they grow bigger every year. Baby-George can say things now."

Remus smiled. Hermione and Ron's son was three, and Remus doubted they would be able to call him baby much longer. Especially if Hermione was pregnant again. Remus was only aware of the possibility because he had finally been allowed in the kitchen. It was the fourth Christmas Remus and Sirius had officially hosted, and although the food was always prepared by Molly with help from Ginny, Fred and Hermione, Remus had always offered to help.

The first three times he had offered, Molly had told him not to be silly. Arthur always hid in his shed on Christmas morning between presents and lunch, she had said, and she hardly thought Remus should have to do more than her husband had. Remus had wanted to protest, but Sirius had taken him away, telling him to be careful of drawing attention to the absences.

"He can say 'Sirius' now," Remus said, with an exasperated chuckled.

Sirius shrugged again. "That's a very important thing," he said.

"You're just jealous that my name is easier for the kids to pronounce," Remus said.

It was true; Harry and Cho's twin girls had called Sirius 'Remus' months before they could say his own name properly.

Sirius scowled; his brow furrowed, eyebrows pointing down like bull's horns, and lower jaw jutting forward. Remus crossed the room and used his thumbs to push Sirius's eyebrows back to their usual place on his forehead. Sirius grabbed Remus's wrists and pushed his hands away, but didn't let go. Remus narrowed one eye with mock suspicion.

Sirius slowly shifted his grip on Remus's wrists so he could trace patterns on his palms, and leant forward so he could lick the pads of Remus's thumbs. Remus shivered and tried to pull his hands free, laughing.

"I have to clean up," he said.

"You won't be here tomorrow?"

Sirius had been converted to Mark Twain's life philosophy — 'Never put off til tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow,' — sometime in their third year at Hogwarts. He also sounded much too plaintive for a man who had spent most of the day with his friends. Remus cuffed him lightly across the head.

"Anyway," Sirius said. "_Harry_'s first word was 'Padfoot.'"

Remus gripped the sides of Sirius face to force eye contact.

"Harry's first word was 'li-li,'" Remus said deliberately. "And when he first said 'Padfoot' it was a word that meant dessert."

Sirius laughed delightedly.

"You don't think that I'm sweet?" he demanded.

Remus rolled his eyes and pushed himself upright. He turned back to the table and began collecting glasses. Christmas lunch was for twenty-three adults and three children, so there were close to sixty glasses to wash.

"You really don't think I'm sweet?" Sirius asked, pouting theatrically, when Remus returned from the kitchen.

"Sugary," Remus said, collecting more glasses. "Aren't you going to prove your sweetness by helping me clean up?"

Sirius shrugged nonchalantly. "I'm the master of the house," he said. "I don't do helping. Although I see that Molly let you help this year."

"I think Hermione may be pregnant," Remus said, carrying the glasses away.

"Nah, it's Ginny who's pregnant," Sirius said, when he retuned.

"Really?" Remus asked.

Remus hadn't been sure that Simon was comfortable with magic enough to start a family. He still didn't think that Ginny was old enough to be a mother herself, all of twenty-eight years old now.

"Molly told me," Sirius said. "I don't think Simon knows yet."

"He's going to be freaked out when strange things start happening around the house," Remus said with a chuckle. He wasn't surprised that Sirius knew before the father. Sirius spent most of Christmas day with the widows, although really what Emmeline, Molly and Sirius had in common was a mystery to Remus.

"Do you remember how freaked Lily's mum was when all the ice-cream was suddenly English Toffee?"

Lily had been almost six months pregnant at the time. Mrs Evans had brought chocolate icecream because it was Lily's favourite, it just didn't happen to be Harry's, apparently.

"Do you remember how pleased James was, that the baby's first magic was transfiguration?"

"Ah, dear Prongs. Lily was more than willing to claim that it had been a piece of Charms work."

"She had a point," Remus said, setting the glasses back down and turning to Sirius. "Most food magic is Charms work; you can't conjure real food."

"But the ice-cream was already there," Sirius said.

"But not the toffee."

"He wasn't even born yet, he didn't know what real toffee tasted like. Besides, Peter always preferred raw conjured chocolate to the real stuff."

Remus shuddered. He had wanted chocolate one day in second year to keep him awake while he caught up on work. The others hadn't known either why he was behind, or about his sensitivity to food and Peter had supplied him chocolate he had conjured himself. Remus had felt horribly ill for the rest of the week.

"Please, can we go one Christmas without you haunting me with Peter's eating habits; the rest of him haunts us enough."

Remus turned his back on Sirius to collect the second load of glasses and take them down to the kitchen.

"I don't know why you don't just send them to the kitchen," Sirius said, completely unrepentant for having brought Peter into the conversation.

Remus glared at him over an armful of tumblers. Sirius rolled his eyes.

"It you must do it like that, leave it til tomorrow."

"If I took your advice on everything, the house would never be properly cleaned," Remus said.

"Now you sound like the old women," Sirius warned him.

"That doesn't mean I don't have a point," Remus said. "Has Moira Granger ever even let you enter her house?"

"Only when we carried Hermione there," Sirius said. He frowned. "Even then she didn't want to let me in."

"I don't know why I put up with you," Remus said.

"Of course not," Sirius said. "The only person who did was Mrs Potter. She thought I was funny."

"You're a lazy slob," Remus retorted.

He would have turned away and left the room again, but suddenly his arms were empty. He couldn't help glancing at the now cleared table, and Sirius was grinning in a far too smug a manner when he caught his eye again.

"And a cheeky bastard."

"But you love me anyway," Sirius said.

Remus paused to consider the proposition a moment.

"You know I don't think that's entirely true," he said slowly.

Sirius was instantly on his feet in the uncertain but defensive pose that reminded Remus of their first night at Hogwarts. James had known who the Blacks were, and even with Peter's assurances, Sirius's presence was an anomaly Remus hadn't understood and James had been suspicious of. Remus had spent most of the first term watching Sirius very carefully; until he could almost predict how Sirius would react in any given circumstances. He smiled gently.

"I think I love you because you're a cheeky bastard."

It took Sirius a beat to hear and understand — then he glared. He crossed the space between them in two strides and threw his arms around Remus to hold him close and kiss him forcefully. Remus returned the kiss warmly, thinking that this was just the way to end Christmas day.

Sirius pulled back; the cheeky grin returned. "You only think you love me?"

Remus kissed him again, knowing that for all his bravado, Sirius had always been uncertain of his place.

"I love you," he said, and was rewarded with a bright and sincere smile.

"I love you, too," Sirius said.

It was lovely to see everyone on Christmas, Remus thought briefly as Sirius kissed him gently once more. But it was always much nicer after everyone had left and the house was clean again.


End file.
